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Once There Were Wolves

A Novel
Pages
263
Published
2021
Language
English

Synopsis

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "Blazing...Visceral" (Los Angeles Times) · "Exceptional" (Newsweek) · "Bold...Heartfelt" (New York Times Book Review) · "Thought-provoking and thrilling" (GMA) · "Suspenseful and poignant" (Scientific American) · "Gripping" (The Sydney Morning Herald) From the author of the beloved national bestseller Migrations, a pulse-pounding new novel set in the wild Scottish Highlands. Inti Flynn arrives in Scotland with her twin sister, Aggie, to lead a team of biologists tasked with reintroducing fourteen gray wolves into the remote Highlands. She hopes to heal not only the dying landscape, but Aggie, too, unmade by the terrible secrets that drove the sisters out of Alaska. Inti is not the woman she once was, either, changed by the harm she’s witnessed—inflicted by humans on both the wild and each other. Yet as the wolves surprise everyone by thriving, Inti begins to let her guard down, even opening herself up to the possibility of love. But when a farmer is found dead, Inti knows where the town will lay blame. Unable to accept her wolves could be responsible, Inti makes a reckless decision to protect them. But if the wolves didn’t make the kill, then who did? And what will Inti do when the man she is falling for seems to be the prime suspect? Propulsive and spell-binding, Charlotte McConaghy's Once There Were Wolves is the unforgettable story of a woman desperate to save the creatures she loves—if she isn’t consumed by a wild that was once her refuge.

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About the author

C
Charlotte McConaghy

Charlotte McConaghy is an Australian novelist and screenwriter, born in 1988 in Darwin, Northern Territory. She holds a master's degree in screenwriting from the Australian Film, Television and Radio School. She began her career writing speculative fiction for young readers, including the Strangers of Paragor and Chronicles of Kaya series, before turning to adult literary fiction with Migrations (2020). Her subsequent novels, Once There Were Wolves (2021) and Wild Dark Shore (2025), are New York...

Characters

Inti FlynnProtagonist
Aggie FlynnSupporting
Duncan MacTavishSupporting
All characters in Once There Were Wolves

Frequently asked questions

  • Is Once There Were Wolves based on a real wolf reintroduction project?

    The novel's rewilding project in Scotland's Cairngorms is fictional, but it draws on the real, ongoing debate over reintroducing gray wolves to the Scottish Highlands and echoes the well-documented 1995 wolf reintroduction to Yellowstone National Park, which the book explicitly references as a precedent.

  • Is Once There Were Wolves part of a series?

    No. It is a standalone novel. Charlotte McConaghy's other novels, including Migrations and Wild Dark Shore, are separate standalone books with different characters and settings, not sequels or a connected series.

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